I posted an item earlier today about homestays in India; I’d been captivated by a fascinating website describing opportunities to stay in private homes and meet local people throughout the country. That was about an hour before terrorists attacked Mumbai. I’m shocked and saddened, as so many are around the world, by the news coming […]

As regular readers of this blog know, I’m a huge fan of vacation home and apartment rentals. I’ve rented properties on three continents and, fortunately, have never been the victim of a scam. But fraudsters are out there, as shown by this recent CBC story about a Gatineau, Quebec, family who lost $4,000 while trying […]

One way to get unique, unvarnished insights into foreign cultures is to read blogs and articles written by students participating in semester-abroad programs. Today I stumbled on a recent post by American student Laura Ashbaugh, who is currently living in Amman, Jordan. In her post, she reflects on her conflicted relationship with her host family’s […]

The Association of Scotland’s Self Caterers (ASSC) has launched a well-designed website, Embrace Scotland, to link travellers with more than 2,500 vacation rental properties. You can search by region, number of people, property type (apartment, lodge, cottage and so on) and star rating (currently assigned by VisitScotland). Check boxes allow you to specify that you’re […]

The vacation home rental industry must be coming of age: it’s poised to get its own reality show. PineRidge Film and Television (producers of Samantha Brown’s show “Passport to Europe,” among other programs) and Discover Vacation Homes have created a promo video for a proposed new show, “Living Large on Vacation.” According to Discover Vacation Homes […]

Maybe it’s the floundering economy. Perhaps it’s Australians’ famous gregariousness. Whatever the reason, it seems Aussies are getting more interested in house swapping. At least one Down Under swapping organization is seeing a spike in registrations. Homelink Australia, one of the country’s oldest swapping networks, posted a 14-percent rise in registrations in September and is […]

I recently stumbled across a charming blog written by an American college student spending this semester studying at the University of Ghana. Designed mainly to keep her family and friends abreast of her adventures, it’s an unvarnished glimpse of a country few North Americans have the chance to visit. She has a good eye for […]

Tourism market research company PhoCusWright has released some preliminary figures from its forthcoming report, Vacation Rental Marketplace: Poised for Change. According to the study, vacation rentals are a US$24.3-billion industry worldwide, with online rentals accounting for about 12 percent of those revenues. Given the plethora of online vacation rental sites, I’m surprised the figure for […]

A bit of shameless self-promotion here: travel journalist Bob Fisher recently interviewed me about my book “Wanderlust: A Social History of Travel” for his excellent website, Travelosophy. Here’s a link to the podcast.

The concept of vacation home rentals got a shot of publicity earlier this month from Barack Obama (perhaps you’ve heard of him?). The presumptive nominee rented an $8-million home in the Honolulu suburb of Kailua for a family holiday. Hey, when you don’t own a ranch in Texas or a seaside compound in New England, […]